Brightly Burning: what you wern't supposed to know
by orlitza2000
Summary: Tyron glanced one more time at Scrub and then grinned, maliciously, already planning what he would do as his first act as King.
1. Preface

Brightly Burning: What The Author Didn't Want You To Find Out  
Preface  
  
First off, in the words of one of my fellow fanfic writers. "I do not own anything that you recognize." I am not Mercedes Lackey and I am not making money off of this. It's just something I like to do in my spare time. Please. don't sue. All you'll get is a leftover peanut butter and pickle sandwich from last year. Thank you very much.  
  
All right. So, for the few of you who haven't read Brightly Burning, I have one thing to say, READ IT!! It's a good book, it and the Last Herald Mage trilogy are the only ones that made me cry, they were that sad. The story goes kind of like this . This kid, Lavan, moves from the country to Haven with his merchant family. They went so the family could get more royal/highborn attention. His parents want him to join the business but he doesn't want to, he wants to join the guard. So they send him to a merchant school. He gets bullied, big time. Everyone does. The upper classmen, called sixth-formers, are petty tyrants. They force the under-classmen to steal, lie, and cheat for them. The kids have no one to go to. The parents don't believe them and if they don't do what the 6th formers say then they'll be beaten. They pick on Lan more then the others because he's standing up to them. Poor Lan doesn't even know he's doing it. Anyway, around this time Lan's gift starts to appear in the form of fevers and dazzle headaches. The situation at the school finally goes up in flames, literally. He kills the leaders by accident with the manifestation of his gift, Firestarting. While trying to turn it off he hurts himself. Also during this time we meet Herald Pol, a Herald who's kind of like your basic do-everything guy. He has all the gifts. He can't do much with some of them but they're there. Anyway, after a very ironic accident, we won't get into it, he finds out about the situation at the school. A bunch of kids dead, and a lot of kids wounded. His curiosity sparked he investigates. And gets a lot more then he can chew. He finds out about it all, meets Lan, who by the way Freaks Out and then gets Chosen. So, Here they are, Pol is now Lan's mentor. They have to deal with suspicion towards Lan, Lan being Life-Bonded to his Companion (didn't see that coming did you?!) and as an afterthought, another war with Karse. I shouldn't tell you what happens but. I'll give you a hint. The good guys win but there's a brand new landscape out by the Karse-Valdemar border. And there is a major character death.  
  
Now, That's a good story. Angst, Romance, Action, Adventure. It's a grand story. But. what if something different happened.? What if Lan didn't kill those boys.? What would they have done.? What if Lan wasn't Chosen when he was.? What if the war with Karse really was an afterthought.? What then? That's what this story is. It's horribly AU, and the characters are probably OOC. But this is what could've happened. The story the author didn't want you to know about.  
  
Some things to keep in mind while reading this story are: The thing in the cafeteria with Pol and the other heralds, where Herald what's-her-face-that-I'm-to-lazy-to-go-back-and-find-out tells the other Heralds to expect war with Karse really soon, like next season soon, didn't happen in this story. Or rather she did say another war is coming but she doesn't know when.  
  
The kid that ran to Pol's room, the 8 y/o kid with extremely powerful foresight. He didn't have that dream. Or rather he did but Pol wasn't in the middle of a huge fire thing, Pol was facing the fire maybe but it wasn't that big, or dangerous or anything. It's not a big part of the story so ignore it.  
  
I think that's all. That's all that happens that, I think, changes  
before the place where my story starts. Afterwards you can just  
read the changes.  
  
Anyway. Thanks for reading this huge, long preface. I know it  
wasn't easy. I will say, however, that Ch. 1 of this story is done,  
so expect it soon. I'm working on 2, but I don't think that it will  
take long. Anyway, again, Thanks for listening, and on with the  
story. 


	2. Chapter 1

Brightly Burning: What The Author Didn't Want You To Find Out  
  
Starting off from page 127, Where Lan's POV starts  
  
Lan had stopped thinking some time ago; now all he was doing was feeling. It was pure fear, and barely contained rage that consumed him, the ice of panic, the heat of anger, contending for his mind. There wasn't much room left over for thought.  
He struggled to hold in the rage; somehow he felt dimly that if he couldn't keep hold of it something terrible and irrevocable would happen. But the part of him that tried to hang onto a little rational thought was also the part that hurt. The blinding pain of the worst headache he had ever felt without passing out entirely was slowly eroding his ability to hang onto his anger.  
Abruptly, and with a final shove, Tyron's bullies sent him sprawling at the ringmaster's feet. He panted, both with exertion and the flush of heat that consumed him, on his hands and knees.  
The pain was excruciating, the fear held him paralyzed still, and the anger raged against the bonds containing it.  
His ears filled with roaring, very like the thunder of a river in full flood. He barely heard Tyron say, "Strip his shirt off, and strap him down."  
A haze of red clouded his eyes. When two of Tyron's henchmen grabbed him and pulled his shirt over his head, they exclaimed as they grabbed onto his arms. "Tyron - He's as hot as a branding iron!" said the one on his right. "If he's got a fever, maybe you should leave him alone for now -."  
"I've left him alone for long enough," Tyron replied with irritation, and to punctuate his intentions, he took his first stroke on Lan's bare back while he was still held between the two bullies, the cane whistling through the air with the savage force that Tyron put behind it.  
The pain of the lash was worse then anything Lan had ever felt. It cut right through the headache, broke his paralyzing fear, and left him with only instinct.  
He had to get away! He had to get away, and now!  
The fear joined the anger, and together they destroyed the last of his rapidly eroding control over that overpowering rage - and the terrible thing that his rage had summoned.  
A moment of utter silence as Tyron pulled back for a second blow.  
It fell.  
The entire room erupted in flames.  
The three who were closest, Tyron and the two bullies, Loman and Derwit, who were holding his arms, went up like oil-soaked torches, screaming with agony. Tyron blundered backward and into the wall. The boy to Lan's right howled and whirled in circles aimlessly. The one to his left ran straight into the fireplace.  
Lan himself only noticed this with a tiny part of his mind that was numb and frozen with horror, unable to think, only to observe. The rest of him was consumed with flame, was the flame, and existed only to feed itself.  
It reached for the nearest source of fuel; the chair, jumping over the three boys already afire; still screaming in pain, then to the other boys who were trapped. He was between them and the door, and the fire was hungry. and very, very angry.  
Flames blossomed all around him, sending his hair upward, propelled by tiny flames that liked the air savagely, a nimbus of fury that nevertheless did not touch him. One of the boys tried to dash past him, making for the door.  
The fury inside him recognized the attempt at escape, and intercepted him before Lan realized what was happening. The boy exploded into flame like the other three and dropped like a shot bird to the floor. Dead.  
That was the one horror that could make him pull himself out of shock. And It hurt. His headache was now reaching heights of pain he had never imagined could exist. But the fires were slowly going down, and down, til there was nothing left. Only a gang of frightened 6th formers, who cleared the room very fast after the fires were down, three badly burned 6th form boys, a pile of boy shaped ashes, and Lan. close to exhaustion and blacking out.  
  
****  
  
Tyron pulled himself up, glancing around in undisguised fear for the fires and their source. His eyes fell on Scrub; quivered into a ball staring at a pile of ashes, which he uneasily recognized as Holden Strumt, the son of a very rich merchant his father did business with. Scrub was murmuring over and over again, "I didn't mean to do it! It was an accident!" and "I'm a murderer." Tyron started to smirk. Loman still moaning with pain, came up to him on his right and Derwit, horribly silent, came up on his left. "Friends," Tyron started, his smirk widening, "I think we can speed up our plans for ruling Valdemar."  
Loman and Derwit agreed. Then the three grabbed the boy in front of him, and headed home. to make up a story about Holden trying to play with fire and to get a Healer's aid. Tyron glanced one more time at Scrub and then grinned, maliciously, already planning what he would do as his first act as King. 


End file.
